


Find A Way

by GavinConroy (Batsymomma11)



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: All Humans, Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, Falling In Love, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Male Slash, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2020-03-02 10:27:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18809317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Batsymomma11/pseuds/GavinConroy
Summary: "There was something thrilling about doing it all over again. Like breathing again after so long of holding my breath. Like breaking clear of a storm that had been raging for years in my mind. But it was equally frightening. The longer I was with Nines, the further Connor got from me. His memories grew so faint, so smudged by time and Nines’ warm presence, I had to struggle in the mornings to remember Connor’s voice. I had to cling and scrabble to keep the memories close and not forget them."Gavin Reed loved once and it cost him. He isn't sure he ever wants to risk his heart again. But when he meets Nines, a local fisherman, he finds himself falling all over again.





	Find A Way

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own Detroit: Become Human or its characters. I do own this story. 
> 
> Thanks for reading and enjoy!

**Gavin**

 

            I didn’t know it could feel like that. I didn’t know that _I_ could feel like that.

            I was fresh-faced and naïve, too angry and so green it would have been painful to admit out loud. I didn’t understand it then. No, how could I? I was a child. A child with the ideals of a man. But a child nonetheless.

            I ran into my twenties with a speed that was inadvisable and by twenty-six, I knew what I liked, how I liked it and with whom. I was unapologetically gay, open and honest about my liking of men and that I wasn’t too picky about partners. I had a lot of shit sex. Sex that didn’t even make sense, just for the hell of it. Rebellion? Sure. You could call it that.

            My mother called it a death wish.

            My father stopped talking to me when I came out around the age of eighteen. He always knew. But when I actually had the balls to just say it, rather than hide, he cut ties and wouldn’t speak to me anymore. My mother felt the same, for the first year anyway. Then she caved and started writing me letters. Then we snuck off and had secret coffee dates and then finally, she bucked up and told Dad that she couldn’t live without me and didn’t intend to.

            I’d never been more proud of the woman in my life.

            At thirty, I met a man who was everything I could have wanted. He was soft where I was rough. Kind where I was mean. Gentle where I was loud. He knew when to push, how to push, and what to push. He knew me.

            And we fell deeply, irrevocably, in love. I loved him more than anyone. After a decade of chasing my own tail and flushing my life down the drain, I finally met someone who could knock some sense into me. Connor was a good man. The best of the best.

            Three days after my thirty-fourth birthday, Connor got into an accident on his drive home from work and died. He didn’t even make it to the hospital. He was pronounced dead on-scene after thirty minutes of trying to extricate. They didn’t even attempt to resuscitate him as it was obvious he was already gone. While I was lying under a Chevy Tahoe with grease dripping on my face, my partner for the last four years was dying on the corner of Beal and North Avenue.

            I didn’t get out of bed for days.

            My mother came over, tried to help. Nothing did.

            At first, I was too numb. Then the pain in such wracking waves that I’d not eat for days and even then, I’d throw everything up when I tried. I lost a frightening amount of weight. When I managed to get back into the shop, back into my shop, I barely scraped by. It was a struggle just to make ends meet because I couldn’t take enough jobs to pay the rent. I was too deeply entrenched in the grief.

            I was—too broken. Connor was gone and I didn’t know what to do. I’d found the love of my life and we were—God, we were so fucking happy and he just died. He left me. He just—

            I couldn’t stay in Newark. Everywhere I looked, Connor’s face was looking back at me. In street windows, the grocery store, the gas station. Everywhere. I couldn’t escape his memory or the memories we made in our tiny one-bedroom apartment but I couldn’t stay. I had to go.

            I sold the shop. I kissed my mother. Then I left.

            I drove West, as far west as I could until I ran into Oregon and then the coastline. I stopped when I hit sand and black jagged rocks. I had a little money, but not much. So I found a job in a diner and worked for a year, while living in a bedroom someone was renting in their basement. It was the most miserable year of my life and I spent huge lapses of time laying out elaborate plans to kill myself.

            My mother called daily. Right before bed. And that was the only thing that stopped me. I couldn’t think of how awful it would be to get a phone call that someone had found her son’s body in a dingy basement. I reminded myself that I couldn’t hurt her like that.

            I reminded myself that Connor would be furious with me if I ever did something so selfish. And it helped. It helped enough that after that year was up, I’d saved enough to put a down payment on a little abandoned warehouse. I cleaned it up, smacked some paint and a fresh sign on, then advertised in the local newspaper that I was open.

            By the end of my first day, I had my first customer.

            As it happened, Shetland didn’t have a reliable, affordable mechanic and the locals were eager. Eager enough, within two years of business, I bought a house a block away from the shop and moved right in. It was a piece of shit and it needed a lot of work, but after a couple of years, it wasn’t too bad. I even flew my mother out for a visit, and she cooed over how nice my new countertops looked.

            I was making a spot for myself and getting back all those tiny pieces that had been scattered when Connor died. I was—moving on.

            I still thought about him. Sometimes, I’d wake up before my alarm, look across the bed and think I heard him. I would see his shoulder, the soft curve of muscle and skin. I’d smell his skin or hear his voice. I’d think, rather wistfully, any moment he was going to walk in the door and ask me how my day was. He was going to lean down, his mouth hitched in that half-grin of his, then press his lips lightly to mine, like he used to do and then I’d latch on and we’d linger. We’d just soak up the warmth of coming back together after a long day and it would be like no time had passed at all. It would be like it never happened. Like the last five years without Connor, were just a blink.

            But like a shift in the storm or wind that can’t be tamed, I started to notice I was forgetting Connor. The details of our life together, the edges, were growing hazy and as sad as that made me, there was a bigger part of me that was relieved I wasn’t going to be forever trapped in our memories. I was relieved that I might actually be moving on. Connor’s memories started to comfort me, rather than torture me. I started to picture him being happy for me and being relieved as well, that I’d finally been able to make it on my own. Without him. And I thought, rather stupidly, that everything was going to be alright. I thought I was good. Maybe even happy.  

            And then.

            Then.

            Then it all fell back apart.

 

 

 

**Nines**

I’d heard about Gavin Reed from the local grapevine. It would be hard not to with the way small towns gossiped and Shetland was anything but out of the norm. Everyone talked. Everyone guessed and whispered about the handsome angry mechanic who’d blown into Shetland a few years ago with only the clothes on his back and an air of mystery that no amount of shushing could stifle. People in Shetland loved to talk and Gavin Reed was news. Four years after his arrival, he was still news.  

            He’d become something of an enigma and all the local ladies liked to gossip about who’d get a shot with him in the sack if he’d bother to offer a second look. I usually ignored the gossip, striding by without a second thought. It wouldn’t be the first time some lonely man managed to end up in Shetland and then found himself a wife.

            Being born and raised there, I didn’t have any interest in leaving. It was my home. Always would be. But I understood the draw of the ocean and everything it had to offer. I understood why someone might come looking for rest in a place that was far from home.  

            And I suppose, I’d seen the man from afar. But only in passing. My life kept me out on the water, fishing during the busy season and then running tours on my trawler during the slow season. I was busy. I didn’t have the time, or even the inclination to stop what I was doing long enough to breathe, let alone notice there was another man in Shetland. Least of all that he was gay, for Christ-sake. Though I certainly got a few wild phone calls from two of my sisters when that tidbit of information hit the grapevine.

            I’d long ago resigned myself to the rare one-night stand that I could manage when I was off-shore in another harbor during fishing season. I had no time for a relationship and wasn’t even sure I’d be interested in tying myself down at all. Relationships were something that I didn’t think I’d be good at. So, I kept it simple. Bars weren’t exactly the safest place to pick up a guy, nor the choosiest, but I usually left satisfied. As did the other.  

            When my pickup started smoking on the way to the grocery store, I thought nothing of calling over to Gavin’s shop, asking for his first booking in the morning. He was polite on the phone, nothing like the hot-head everyone painted him to be and when I said goodbye after securing my appointment, I wasn’t expecting anything out of the ordinary when I walked in the next morning.

            But I suppose I was asking for it when I sauntered into that surprisingly clean garage and found Gavin Reed nursing a cup of coffee and a cigarette by the back door. He didn’t see me right away. Which was probably a good thing, since I had to physically close my own goddamn mouth.

            The man was stunning.

            Sunrise did nice things to his face, which was all sharp lines and angles. His brows were a little furrowed, over contemplative eyes, too dark for me to denote the color. But I could see they were the sort of eyes meant for getting lost in. Thinking about after a long day. He had dark hair, trimmed tastefully but run through recently with hands because it was a little messy.

            Every drop of moisture went out of my mouth when he turned and finally caught sight of me. And I swear, I swear to God, time stopped. He looked at me, I looked at him and we stared for a solid five seconds. It should have been awkward or strange, to stare at a person I’d never met like that. But I couldn’t stop myself and the moment stretched, it stretched long enough that Gavin was striding towards me, the outline of his legs clearly muscled and lean beneath the pantlegs of his coveralls and my heart launched into my throat. I couldn’t speak. Not when he stopped just a scant foot in front of me, snubbed out his cigarette then lifted his chin to peer up at me.

            He was shorter by a good four inches. Maybe more. I just knew it looked good on him. His frame might have been shorter, but he wasn’t bulky or mousey. He was somehow in between. Muscled but lean. A little soft, but also rough. His cheeks were brushed with stubble and his eyes—I could see them now—were a soft green. Far more gentle than the stubborn tilt to his mouth or the faint scar running crosswise on the bridge of his nose.

            “You must be Gavin,” I finally managed after another long perusal and Gavin’s mouth twitched, his eyes tightening as they skated from my face down my neck to my shoulders and back up.

            “And you must be Nines.”

            “Yes.”

            We stared another moment, the air sizzling with a frightening burn of electricity then he stepped around me and headed straight for my truck. I didn’t stop him or even say anything when he lifted the hood and started poking around. He said nothing. I was too busy trying to slow the sprinting of my heart. I was too busy trying not to run.

            Whatever this was, whatever was happening, it _terrified_ me. I’d never felt this way around another man, and I’d seen my fair share of attractive men. I’d slept with a few. But Gavin…there was something different and wild about the man. Something that was calling to a deep need in my chest that I didn’t like in the least.

            I left my truck for the day. I returned at sundown, prepared to get my truck and go. I had no intention of backing Gavin into his desk to kiss him. I never meant to haul him up on the edge and fist a handful of his hair, forcing that neck to bend back for my mouth.

            Gavin groaned, such a pretty sound out of a man who looked too rough to make it and it thrilled me so badly, I almost finished right then. I should have stopped. I should have run, right then, right when I knew how dangerous Gavin would be to me. And I to him.

            I didn’t.

            We had sex on Gavin Reed’s desk and when it was done, Gavin laughed and asked if I’d like a smoke. I’d never been so stunned in my life.

            I’d just manhandled this person. I’d bent him over his own desk and fucked him like we were lovers and we certainly were not and he—he wanted a smoke. He was acting like this was normal and he did it every day. Like he always got frisky with customers when they came to pick up their cars.

            I said I wouldn’t see him again. I swore it wasn’t good for either of us. I would hurt him. Hell, he’d certainly hurt me. But I ended up back at his shop and this time we managed to get to his house, a block down the road before tearing each other’s clothes off. Gavin was like holding fire in bed. He stole something from me each time we came together and even as I craved his touch and his laugh and his body, I knew that it was going to be so much more than all of that.

            I knew it when I called him for the first time after leaving for fishing season and said that I missed him. I knew it when he fell asleep with me on the phone and I left it on all night because it meant I could hear him snoring. I knew it when I came back and Gavin was waiting for me in the docks, cigarette in hand with a smirk painted on his mouth. I knew it when he whispered that he loved me, one night after making love, and we were pressed together sweaty and sated.

            I knew it. I didn’t run. I didn’t leave. I didn’t try to stop the unstoppable.

            Because I loved him back.

 

 

**Gavin**

Nines was different than Connor. Different and yet—sometimes the same.

            The first time we had sex, I’d been too stunned at my own response to being thrown down, that I’d just let it happen. Hell, I’d participated like it was the end of the world and it was the only chance I was ever going to get a good lay.

            Of course, I’d been coming off of a dry spell of about five years, so I attributed my frightening desire for Nines to that. But when it kept happening and I kept ending up in his bed or mine or somewhere in between, I couldn’t keep lying to myself. I was falling in love with Nines and it didn’t feel like I could stop it.            

            There was something thrilling about doing it all over again. Like breathing again after so long of holding my breath. Like breaking clear of a storm that had been raging for years in my mind. But it was equally frightening. The longer I was with Nines, the further Connor got from me. His memories grew so faint, so smudged by time and Nines’ warm presence, I had to struggle in the mornings to remember Connor’s voice. I had to cling and scrabble to keep the memories close and not forget them.

            I’d sneak off when Nines was sleeping and hold pictures, tracing lines and smiles that were once so familiar I had them memorized. I’d cry and I’d do it alone because I was afraid of telling Nines about Connor. I was afraid that like Connor—Nines would someday disappear. Mist being burned off by the reality of the sun.

            Days blurred into weeks, blurred into months and Nines remained. We grew closer, I sank deeper and one night, after Nines had driven me to the brink and emptied me hollow, I whispered that I loved him.

            I—I said it and meant it.

           I hadn’t meant to ever say that to another man again. I didn’t want to. And the moment I said it, the moment it came out, I felt the stab of pain beneath my breastbone like it was a blade. Nines said the words back. I heard them, vaguely beyond the ringing in my ears and the sob that wanted to rise out of my middle and swallow me whole, but just barely. And for once, I wanted to tell Nines about Connor. I wanted him to know what was happening in my head and in my chest.

            I wanted him with me in that ugly place. I didn’t want to be alone.

            It took Nines a few days to realize something was wrong with me.

            We had a big fight about it. He confronted me after work, storming into my shop in a manner that was usually my style and I didn’t have the energy to defend or deflect. Nines was worried. He was hurt that I’d been avoiding his calls. He thought I regretted telling him that I loved him.

            Maybe I didn’t mean it—wrong.

            Maybe I wished I could take it back—wrong again.

            I snapped.

            “You don’t know what you’re talking about! So back the fuck off, Nines.”

            “Then tell me, Gavin. Tell me. Because I know something is wrong and it happened after you told me that you loved me.”

            “I meant it,” the words came tumbling out of me again, the pain slicing and cutting till I had to press a hand to my chest to hold it in. I didn’t want to do this right now. I was too tired. I was—feeling thin and small.

            I didn’t want Nines to know I _could_ be thin and small. He’d never seen that side of me.  

            “Then why do you look like that? Why aren’t you talking to me?”

            “You wouldn’t understand.”

            “Try me.”

            “No,” I was running. I knew it. I knew I was trying to run and so did Nines. Because he stopped me at the door, swinging me around in a parody of him tossing me over my desk almost a year previous and we both froze when I panicked. I slapped out at him, breaking his grip, trying to leave again only to be stopped and this time with enough force to knock a wounded grunt out of me when my shoulder hit the door frame.

            “Stop it!”

            “Let go of me,” I snapped, anger making my voice shake. Tears thick in my throat. “Just let me go.”

            “No. I’m not leaving you, Gavin. I’m not.”

            “You can’t promise me that.”

            “I can. I’m promising it. I’m—”

            “No,” I growled, aware my face was wet, and Nines was tracking the tears with a bewildered expression marring his face and I couldn’t stop it. It was all breaking apart in front of me, sand in between my fingers. “You can’t promise that! You can’t ever promise that because—because people leave. People die, Nines! So, fuck you and fuck your promises. Nobody can promise a goddamn thing!”

            “Gav—”

            “No,” I hissed, trying desperately to shrug Nines off of me, but he was bigger and stronger. He always had been. Like Connor. Connor was bigger and stronger than me too and I’d liked that about him. It had suited the two of us, like it suited me and Nines. Nines who had black hair instead of brown, whose eyes were a faded denim and not teddy bear brown. Nines, who had stunned me into silence from the first moment I met him and made me fall in love with him without my fucking permission without even trying.

            Nines—who could leave, just like Connor did. Who could die—just like Connor.

            “Gavin, please.”

            “Y-you don’t get it. You’ve n-never lost—”

            Nines hugged like he was on a mission. I made fun of him for it. I poked fun at a lot of things he did. But it was something I needed just then. His arms came around me, shields against the room and locked into place. I couldn’t have escaped even if I’d wanted to, so it made it easy to lean in, to grab handfuls of cotton t-shirt and press my feverish cheek to that big strong chest. To cry.

            I cried so hard I couldn’t breathe and then Nines held me tighter, crushing me so close, I could hear his heartbeat in my ears like it was my own.

            The tears eventually dried up. The storm ended and I felt hollow when it fled.

            Nines took me home. He tucked me into bed, then stayed, wrapped tightly around me, face nuzzled into the back of my neck, one heavy arm draped over my middle. I tried to remember Connor’s voice before falling asleep. It was weak and distorted—aged from time.

            But I thought I heard him tell me to be happy. That he was happy.

            I remembered it in the morning.

 

 

**Nines**

He told me everything. Over a cup of coffee with that damn cigarette burning down to the filter, unsmoked but present, with puffy eyes and a ragged voice. He told me about Connor.

            I listened, I nodded, I said what I was supposed to say. And then he showed me a picture of this man he’d loved. This man who had died almost six years ago and something small and fragile in my chest broke.

            I understood all the fractured little moments I’d not understood with Gavin before. I understood why he lingered when running his fingers through my hair. I understood why he sometimes held too tight at night. Why he would smell my cologne on the bathroom counter but only when he thought I wasn’t looking. Why it hurt so badly to admit he was in love with another man.

            Because it meant he finally had to let go of Connor.

            It meant he was moving on.

            It took a week before Gavin said he loved me again. Then a handful of days later, again. It grew in consistency until Gavin was actively telling me how much he loved me on a regular basis. He was smiling more and laughing. He was looking every day like he was getting to a place of peace. In my heart, I celebrated, on the outside, I was quietly optimistic.

            I wrote Connor a letter. I didn’t know the man. But I had stories and a picture. I had _his_ Gavin and I wanted to thank this man who had meant so much to him. So, I sat down one day and I wrote the letter. I slipped it into Gavin’s hand one night after the ten o’ clock news then went to bed.

            An hour later, I felt the bed dip, I heard Gavin blow out a tired breath. Then he curled into my side and we kissed for long minutes. We kissed till the air in our bedroom felt thick with need and suddenly, I couldn’t get enough skin. I kissed every bit of Gavin’s skin that night. I traced all his scars, I watched how he bit his lip and revelled in the little moans he tried to keep quiet.

            I soaked it all in and when Gavin found my hand, winding our fingers together and said he loved me again, I thanked Connor for that as well.

 

             

 


End file.
